Sewing machine helper

I found this idea somewhere but for the life of me I could not refind it so I decided to just give it a go.

I have a little wooden sewing box but my table is always covered in scissors, bobbins and bits of thread. So as this heat is making me melt to distract me I decided to give making my sewing machine helper a go. It's basically a mat that goes under your machine and hangs off the end of your table with 3 little pockets for storage - aka

Best of all it's really simple, so here goes.

1. Firstly the stripy material is actually a pillowcase I found in the charity shop, you can use anything but this was the prefect size and nice and bright.

2. Next you need some battening, I stitched together 2 bits from a pile of leftovers after I made quilts for my kids. I cut it to match the width of the pillowcase - see cunning, now I don't have to hem much.

 3. Slide the battening into the pillowcase and pin in place, especially the corners. It'll help keep it still until you can sew it. Then zip along the edges and through the middle for good luck to hold the battening in place.

4. Then you cut out your pockets, I used felt - no hemming, lazy, you know the drill. Pin them in place and sew around the edges, leaving the top open. I shifted the 2 sides of the middle pocket in a bit thinking it would make it a better pocket to hold more but actually you don't need to. Just lie it flat and sew.

5. To finish I cut off the bottom of the pillow case so just under the pockets, tucked the open material inside the pillow case, ironed it and then sewed them close as above. Now you are all ready to fill the pockets with anything you like!



Working in Felt

Hello. Long time no write. I have been getting ready for my sister in law's baby shower and it's been nose to the grindstone. But now that is all over and the heat has locked me inside I though I should let you know what I have been up to.

I run Rhyme Time at the local library and have a few things for the kids to play with as we sing. I have some multicoloured shakers and one sorry looking spider made from black wool and pipe cleaners. He has been much loved of late!

But I decided it was time to add to my bag of tricks. So after I finished my sister in law's quilt. Easier than I imagined so I will add a quick tutorial when I do my next one:

Anyway I had some yellow felt leftover from this and decided to make some ducks for my "5 little ducks" song. The great thing with the felt was no hemming, so I found a stencil on google, copied and added it to powerpoint, made one smaller and one larger. The smaller one was about a quarter of a page and the larger one about half. But I stuck them on one page - saving paper! Printed them out, then when I cut them out I decided to had about half an inch around the edge as I was worried they would be too small. I just eyeballed it.

Once you have 5 little ducks and 1 Mama duck I decided to stitch the beaks together without stuffing, I did this with orange thread so it would separate it from the rest of the yellow. I think you could make separate beak if you wanted but I was feeling lazy. Also you could probably have filled in the beak with a lot more orange thread as well if you liked. I didn't - see previous reason!

Then I gave them black eyes just stitching with some black thread.

I zipped them through my machine with yello thread, leaving about 2 inches at the bottom to stuff.

For stuffing I found an old pillow, and have been using that to fill various things. Cheaper than buying plus I get to recycle.

Abi - my 4 year old - and I stuffed the ducks, I sealed with some yellow thread and a basic stitch - nothing fancy. That word would never be used with my sewing in the same sentence :)

And ta da, 5 little ducks and their Mama ready for Rhyme Time;